Mind Chemicals

In the late 1990s, an access2growth client, Krone Technique (UK), had been forced to restructure such that every employee had to re-apply for his/her job. It was a traumatic time for everyone and morale was set to plummet. The managing director, Paul Curtis, took a bold decision. He informed everyone where they stood: some would be made redundant whilst others would remain employed, but in different positions. Those to be made redundant would be offered support to help them find other jobs elsewhere and the redundancy package would be generous.

Paul had inadvertently optimised the use of mind chemicals.

Our brain has evolved for over fifty thousand years, often to help defend us against the elements. Modern day factory and office ‘work’ is only a few hundred years old. The aim of this article is show that leaders can learn from the way our brain’s chemicals work.

When we feel safe amongst our own people, our natural reaction is to trust and co-operate together. When we do not feel safe the natural reaction is cynicism, paranoia and self-interest. The question we face is: how do you create a circle of safety to enjoy the positive and avoid the negative feelings? In life, to get people to do what we want we direct behaviours using incentives, targets, goals and rewards. Inside the human brain are certain incentives that work in exactly the same way. Feelings of pride, status, accomplishment, love, trust, friendship, and loyalty are all called happy feelings and they are produced from four chemicals in the brain. They are Endorphins, Dopamine, Serotonin and Oxytocin. These chemicals are trying to incentivise us to repeat behaviours that are in our best interest and generate co-operation and trust. This is why the sense of belonging is so powerful. In the same family there is another brain chemical, the stress hormone Cortisol, that has kept humans alive for thousands of years.

You get an Endorphin rush when you win a race. Have you ever laughed so much that it hurts? That’s when the Endorphin runs out. It is often called a ‘feel-good’ chemical because it can act as a pain reliever and happiness booster. It works similarly to a class of drugs called opioids. We do not use much Endorphin in our modern age. We use other drugs to mask pain when needed.

Dopamine is released when our brain is expecting a reward. When you come to associate a certain activity with pleasure, mere anticipation may be enough to raise dopamine levels. Dopamine is the good feeling you get when you accomplish something such as completing a task or ticking off a simple goal on a to-do list. Most incentives are Dopamine incentives. The problem is you can become addicted to the high that Dopamine brings. Also, Dopamine and Endorphins are selfish chemicals. With them you do not need to share the high with anyone else and the problem is that the feelings do not last, they are very short term. Too much Dopamine makes us addicted and we become selfish.

In life, our best opportunities are to work together to face the dangers from the outside world. The other two chemicals Serotonin and Oxytocin are selfless social chemicals offering trust, loyalty and co-operation. Serotonin is the Leadership chemical offering feelings of pride, status and self-confidence. Achieving public recognition comes from Serotonin. It makes us feel valued by our peers and bosses. Serotonin works best when the success is shared between: parent and child, coach and player, worker and boss.

As in the animal kingdom, we are hierarchical creatures who constantly judge each other to assess who is the alpha and beta, or who are the natural leaders and followers. When you meet someone and you are nervous, they are the Alpha. When someone else is Alpha, the rest voluntarily step back. Alpha leaders get first choice of food and mate, and followers eat later. Today we are comfortable with senior people getting preferential treatment. If you are a good leader, you get your Serotonin to rise along with your confidence and it feels great.

However, the perks don’t come for free. There’s a cost. The group knows that when danger threatens, we expect the leader (who is strongest and fastest) to rush towards the danger to protect us. This is the law of the jungle. Unfortunately, many leaders today reverse this law and rush away, leaving workers to face the dangers unprotected.

Oxytocin gives feelings of love, caring, generosity, trust and loyalty. You get the feeling from Oxytocin from two actions: first physical contact and second from certain behaviours.  Physical contact comes naturally when we hug our children to make them feel safe, or share a high five with sports friends or a pat on the back to show someone you care. Secondly, a thank-you card or a quiet word saying “well done” also releases Oxytocin.

The problem with modernity is that leadership is not a rank, it’s a choice. True leaders defend and make sacrifices for their people. Unfortunately, many of our top bosses are not natural leaders and many at the bottom of the organisation are. When you are a natural leader, your followers reward you with love and loyalty. Unlike the first two selfish chemicals, excess Oxytocin in our system creates even more caring and trust and even boosts our immune system. This makes us happy and smarter and we live longer.

The final chemical is not for happiness. Cortisol, the stress hormone, increases sugars in the bloodstream, enhances your brain's use of glucose and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues. Cortisol also curbs functions that would be nonessential or detrimental in a fight-or-flight situation. Cortisol is an early warning system to keep us alive and should leave our system when the danger passes. Unfortunately, with modernity comes stressful environments which can drip Cortisol continuously.

In a work environment, this happens when rumours circulate or redundancies are near. With worry and tension, our work suffers and we can become paranoid. We fear our leaders would sacrifice us to save themselves.

In the modern world we can use our understanding of the brain’s chemicals to improve human behaviour. How? Starting with Dopamine, short term successes make you feel good. A worker who is given clear tasks to perform every day such as maintain an hour-by-hour target or a check list or to-do list will get the Dopamine feeling every time a box is ticked. This can mean many good feelings a day, but there is a pre-requisite needed from management; the lists must be clear, achievable and documented. Lack of clarity, not documented or too difficult to achieve can have the opposite effect. Also don’t overdo it, remember too much Dopamine can be addictive.

Serotonin is a fantastic motivator as it can affect individuals and teams plus bosses and workers in many different ways. The simplest way is for the boss to praise the worker with a “well done” or “thank you”. Frederick Herzberg, famous for his work on motivation, teaches that the best motivators are achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement and the work itself. The evidence for Herzberg’s theory can be found by measuring Serotonin levels in the brain whilst experiencing those happy feelings. The beauty of Serotonin is that even the boss gets the happiness feeling as well as the worker, so it’s win / win.

Oxytocin, the chemical for caring, trust and loyalty, is very important in the work place, but to produce it in abundance the corporate culture, management style and leadership must be aligned. A caring company that develops its people and treats them well will hit the target, but how do you know whether yours is one of them? The simplest measure is labour turnover. A high turnover means you have a long way to go. Fortunately, over the past fifty years as traditional companies have been replaced by modern progressive companies the caring/development culture has progressed. Work is getting better for workers and management.

Finally, there is the chemical to avoid: Cortisol. Employers must keep the workforce engaged to avoid damaging rumours. Supervisors, Team Leaders and managers must always treat the workers with respect and avoid stress and de-motivation. Good leadership is the key to avoid Cortisol. Remember the words of Jim Collins, “A bad leader can take a good staff and destroy it, causing the best employees to flee and the remainder to lose all motivation”.

Back at Krone, Paul Curtis and his team had performed a master stroke with the restructuring. The changes were completed successfully and painlessly. Paul often met redundant employees years afterward who openly thanked him for the way the re-organisation was managed. Krone won the Best Factory of the Year award twice in 1997 and 2001. Cortisol had been minimised and Oxytocin and Serotonin maximised for 400 people.

The takeaway for leaders from our understanding of Mind Chemicals is simple: treat workers with respect and be open and honest at all times. This keeps the Cortisol at bay. Instead of catching workers doing something wrong, catch them doing things right every day and recognise their effort. Create a culture of learning where even mistakes should be celebrated if we analyse them and eliminate the causes.

If you would like to learn more, why not email us on info@access2growth.com